Cable Burn In

I just recently bought quite a few brand new Audio Note cables interconnects and speaker cables.
I had borrowed the store demo cables prior to ordering and receiving my new cables. 
I replaced each demo cable with a new cable one at a time. Each new cable did not sound like the one I replaced. I asked the dealer about this. He said give each cable about 50 hours of music playing through them and they will start to bloom and sound like the demo pair.
Sure enough after 50 hours they started to bloom.
I experienced the same results with every other cable.

Spent 45 years working on top-shelf military electronics and have been an audiophile for just as long. I don't buy into the cables need to be burned in BS. It's a wire, it won't change tomorrow or next week or next year unless it breaks, shorts or opens. I honestly think that mega-cable vendors want you to hang in there until you essentially get used to their "wonder cable" and have time to talk yourself into believing that it just keeps getting better every day. ........All military grade gear gets "burned in".....usually at high temp, or alternating hot-cold cycles........to find out if it will fail under stress, that's it. The specs don't get better or worse with use..........if anything they get worse over time as components age............Wire doesn't "age", it's just wire.........If you don't believe me, pick up two identical sets of cable. Put one in your system and let it "burn in". Set the other aside during that time. Then have someone else swap back and forth between the burned in cable and the virgin set without you knowing which cable set has been installed or even if they changed anything at all. I'd bet good money that you will NOT be able to reliably and repeatedly tell which one is in the system..............You'll guess right some percentage of the time, law of averages, but you won't reliably be able to tell one from the other..............It's just wire my friend. If you don't like the way it sounds when you first hook it up, it won't sound better a month later, unless you talk yourself into believing it does.

Sorry for the double post, not intentional.

shadowcat2016  You sound just like an electronics engineer who looks at the numbers only and applies commercial products specifications to all audiophile gear.  Audiophile gear is not a by the numbers application.  Violins can be made exactly the same on an assembly line to mimic a Stradivarius, yet never sound as good as a Strad.  Why is that?  You are so certain that audiophiles are stupid or deaf that we believe what we hear is make believe. 

I'm a part-time classical musician and recording engineer.  My time with hearing differences in cables is critical to the sales of one manufacturer. I KNOW that his newly made cables sound different than a burned-in cable of at least 24 hours (after I get his new cables, I burn them in for five days, minimum).  They can sound better or worse after burning-in, but not the same.  He uses a very complex design and materials that are altered over time/stabilize including a mastic encased mesh copper shielding with tungsten, nickel and carbon powder.  

As I previously mentioned, not all cable requires or is effected by a burning-in process.  I have found that cheap and balanced cables are not as effected.  

fleschler,

Just curious:  What do you mean you are a "cable tester" for a small manufacturer?

Do you mean you are an electrical engineer and you are part of production, and take various measurements of the cables and find an objective measurable difference?  If so, can you pass on to us what measurable differences you've observed between the same cable new vs burned in?


Or do you mean a small manufacturer gives you cables to listen to and report on?